So I have a 10 years old cockapoo/beagle mix and I will admit he is my baby and he knows it. He has always been slightly more cowardly (probably because I babied him so much) but he could deal with loud noises and such. All of a sudden though he has become very skittish to everything. Every time anybody claps their hands he flinches through his entire body, and the flinching will continue until we stop. He also does this flinch if you touch him while he's sleeping. Same thing when I open doors, it even causes him to slip down a couple stairs sometimes and struggle to get to his feet. I understand some of this can be due to him getting older, but it all happened so suddenly, I'm wondering if anything else could have triggered this. As far as I know nothing me or any of my family has done should have caused him to act this way. Advice??

As dogs become older, things that have never bothered them before does.

I'm sure this wasn't something that happened over night. I'm sure if you sit down and really think about it, this has been a gradual onset. Sometimes we don't see things change gradually. Dogs are very stoic. Some more than others. They will hide pain, discomfort, sadness and sometimes even their mental problems in order to survive. Yes, dogs are our pets, and we treat them as children.. but fact is, they are still animals and that wild animal instinct is still very much in them.

His hearing is probably going. His world is very quiet and the only things he can hear are the loud things, such as clapping and clashing of items. That will startle him. Because he is getting older, he doesn't understand why that sound is scaring him, hence the shaking and trembling.

Its very rare that dogs suddenly go deaf. But if this is a major concern to you, you should contact your vet. Any behavior change that concerns you, should really be checked out by a vet. If his body is completely healthy.. than you've just gotten yourself an old, deaf dog ;) Trust me, it happens to the best of them.

His shaking and trembling should go away with time. He'll soon learn that things are just loud, not harmful... or he'll just go completely deaf.